Jacob
as seen on TV
- Feb 27, 2002
- 49,465
- 25,052
I don't understand: if we're going to roll the dice on a player in the 4th round of a really good draft, and we've already just drafted SegUla and have a boatload of Dmen in the organization and yet so thin up front, why not roll the dice on a forward instead? This is the type of crap that makes me angry. What was Birks' realistic upside - Rob Blake?
Yeah. Clarke Seymour is another. Even if everything goes right you're looking at a bottom pairing NHLer at the absolute very best and even that would probably 3-5 years after being drafted. There's just no point to that. You can find that in free agency, you don't need to use a pick or waste years to develop it. And it certainly doesn't fill any organizational need either. Take a flyer on a skilled guy. A high schooler from Minnesota that scored 40 goals in 25 games but he's 5'10" 165 and didn't make the combine. Some kid in the Russian 3rd tier league that can skate and dangle but you only saw him on tape. Just go for it.
Sometimes I think just stat-watching would be a better strategy in the later rounds. 17-18 year olds have so much time to improve any perceived flaws that would prevent them from playing in the NHL, just take kids that can produce where ever they're playing regardless of individual skillset. Look at Jeff Taylor. Why did he fall so low? Average size? Not physical? At a program that doesn't traditionally develop NHLers? Who cares, he's productive.
Birks seems pretty limited in skillset. If you're a d-man that is neither offensive nor physical, what did our scouts see in him?
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